My Mother's painting
Philadelphia, PA
1994
My mother studied art at Moore College of Art. Then she got married and had lots of babies and put her paint brushes away for years. When she turned 50, we paid for her to take an art course in a graduate program. We told her she had paid for our education. Now it was time to return the favor. She took a course in bearable arts. Her project was so stunning that the professor called the Philadelphia Inquirer and suggested a journalist come over and do a story about my mother's project and this class. He did, the professor was pleased and my mother did not go back to the program as she felt too much pressure to succeed.
Instead, she began to take classes at a local art studio, Over the next 20 years, she produced over 200 painting. She never sold them. She rarely gave them away. She never signed them. She just let them pile up.
She died in 1998, right after her 71st birthday. One day, I was at her house and looked under a bed in the guest room for something. I found her stack of painting. Most of the paintings were finished. Others were never going to be finished. At first, i lamented that some were not finished. If only she had spent another morning on some of these paintings, there would be so much more to see. It took me a while to realize that they might not be finished for me, she was finished with them. That's sort of how life works.
